History

Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians ~ Carl Lumholtz Vol. III

Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume III

Carl Lumholtz
III. Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians - It is the purpose of this memoir to show that all designs employed by the Huichol are derived from the animal and plant world, from objects important in the domestic economy and religious life of the tribe, and from natural phenomena familiar to the people.
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View of the Sierra Madre Occidental ~ Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1978 - 2025

Notes on Wixarika History: Early History

Juan Negrín
| December 2003
As archaeologist Phil Weigand puts it, the Wixarika and their Na'ayeri neighbors had deep roots in the area where they are now settled in a sequence that had begun by the Mesoamerican Classic period (ca. 200-700 A. D.). The Corachol branch of this Uto-Aztecan language family leads linguists like Valiñas, cited by Weigand to consider the relative antiquity of this language group in the area.
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The Wixaritari Cleansing Themselves during Easter - Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1979 - 2025

Notes on Wixarika History: Post-Hispanic History

Juan Negrín
| October 2017
The Huichol were distinguished as xurute, according to a geographical map published in 1579, in the Atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (reproduced in various sources: Rojas, Neurath). The term vizurita is used by Father Tello, in his Crónica Miscelánea, written in 1652. The first reference to the huicholes as guisoles appears in a briefing to the bishop Ruiz Colmenares (between 1640 and 1650). Father Antonio Arias y Saavedra used the terms xamucas and huitzolmes in his chronicle (1673), the first ethnological work on the Indians of this area of the Sierra Madre, according to historian Gutiérrez Contreras.
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Clandestine Sawmill, 1981 - Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1981

Notes on Wixarika History: Recent History

Juan Negrín
| December 2003
The government has found it very difficult to ‘civilize’ the Huichol and integrate them as a dependent productive working class in the mountains. After independence was achieved from Spain, the laws of the reform passed under Benito Juárez during the 1850’s, restrained the power of the Catholic Church, but they also stopped recognizing Indian colonial land rights. Soon the Huichol, Cora, Tepehuan and Mexicanero Indian groups of the Western Sierra Madre were further dispossessed of their territory by their mixed blood neighbors. They rebelled, eventually uniting under Manuel Lozada, who joined French invading forces until they were stopped at Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1873. Many of their land holdings were disenfranchised thereafter.
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Clandestine Sawmill on the Outskirts of the Huichol Sierra ©Juan Negrín 1981 2025

Notes on Wixárika History: Recent History

Juan Negrín
| January 2003
After independence was achieved from Spain in 1810, the laws of the reform passed under Benito Juárez during the 1850’s, restrained the power of the Catholic Church, but they also stopped recognizing Indian colonial land rights. Soon the Huichol, Cora, Tepehuano and Mexicanero Indian groups of the Western Sierra Madre were further dispossessed of their territory by their mixed blood neighbors. They rebelled, eventually uniting under Manuel Lozada, who joined French invading forces until they were stopped at Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1873.
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Te'ekata ~ Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1976 -2023

Sacred Sites by Juan Negrín

Juan Negrín
| January 2004
The Wixarika tradition is rendered by three different terms: the first refers to our heart/ memory, tayeiyari- the second to how we develop, tanuiwari- the third to our life, tatukari, is transmitted by families, reinforced by communal living on extended family ranches and through clans at ceremonial centers, tukite (tukipa, sing.). Three places serve as the headquarters for what appear to be distinct Wixarika subgroups, with ritual and dialectical variants.
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La serpiente emplumada entre coras y huicholes

The Feathered Serpent Amongst the Cora and Huichol

Jesús Jáuregui
| January 2002

Article written by Nayarit-born anthropologist and specialist in Naayeri culture, Jesús Jáuregui, for the magazine, Arqueología Mexicana.

"En algunos ritos coras y huicholes, a la serpiente emplumada se le representa en sus manifestaciones antagónicas: flecha chamanica con cascabeles o cola de escorpión, peyote y kieri, Estrella de la mañana y Estrella de la tarde, Sol diurno y Sol nocturno. Este complejo simbólico remite a la lucha cósmica original entre luz y oscuridad, ampliamente extendida en la mitología amerindia."

Read full Spanish-language essay here.

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Photograph ©Peter Collings 2000

The Huichol of Mexico

Peter R. Collings
| January 2000
"The Huichol are best known for their strikingly vivid, and colorful, yarn paintings and beadwork. However, few people know or understand the depth of this pre-Colombian culture. This book is just a brief overview of some answers to some of the questions I am asked of these interesting people." Peter Collings
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The Wixárika: Preserving a way of life

The Huichol: Preserving a Way of Life

Juan Negrín
| September 1992

Draft of Juan Negrín's essay titled "The Wixarika: Preserving A Way of Life", September 1992.

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Discover Mexico

The Huichols Indians a people in transition

J.M. Carrier, ph.d.
| January 1975

"The Huichol Indians have maintained their cultural traditions at a level of integrity far above most pre Columbian societies still existent in Mexico. Living in the rugged and remote hightlands of Jalisco and Nayarit, they have not had to cope over time with the same kind of inroads on their belief systems and daily living as did the linguistically related Indian groups living in the less remote and rugged highlands and lowlands in the same general area."

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